The Daughter of Roy Splendor
by Jodie Kessel
Summary: At first, this story was fanfiction of Black Lightening's daughter. But then it turned into an original Romance story. This story is so different that I OWN all the content within. Since BL inspired it, I'm just putting the first chapter here. I'll upload the other chapters on other fiction sites. I hope u like it. Please let me know whether u do or don't. Thanks.


It's make-believe — phony. My dad and I would put on our happy masks and ran around in circles pretending to help the adoring public, like some corny commercial of an overly happy family. But I, Jessi hated playing along. We're on the edge of Freeland, the safest part of the crime riddled neighborhood, helping to construct one of the lower income houses that my dad lobbied the city council to let him build with tax dollars. We hammered in wood boards that were already laid out by construction crew from yesterday, Friday.

What we're doing isn't going to help the crew one little bit. One of them could have finished nailing them in on his own within five minutes. But we took our time as my dad smiled and waved at the random passersby and possible voter.

God, when did I learn to be so phony as to nail in boards so slowly without my dad telling me to do so first? I just did it like that without thinking about it.

Anyways, the nailing boards into the new house trick only worked on weekends when the real construction workers were off and the families in the neighborhood were at home to see us pretend.

I'm the daughter of Reverend Roy Splendor who's the most famous anti-superhuman mouthpiece in the America. He's also the most greedy, power-hungry nerd you'd ever meet too. That meant he was all for people providing it helped his reputation to care about them. I guess then this was one of those times.

I'd rather look at the Sunday back-to-back reruns of housewives reality TV on my family's large soft couch — somehow that couch was even more comfortable than my bed. But I was stuck hammering a board in on the skeleton of a house the size of my garage.

I'd never see it finished and I'd certainly never meet the family that will live in it. Why should I care? It isn't like I'm getting paid for this. This is all my dad's thing.

Who was I kidding? For some reason, I did care. It wasn't the TV or the couch calling me. Deep down, I wished I could've done more for these people. Their neighborhood was… bad. It looked like the city hadn't cleaned the streets in decades. There's a mattress laid like a pop-tart in one person's yard. Any of the sparse patches of grass was being attacked by grounded-up dirt and trash. And somehow the overall color was gray. I didn't know where it can from. It's just over everything.

But how much more could I do? There was a lot of work to be done and dad had to have three teams of construction workers working at the same time at six separate houses. I couldn't do that.

I really resented him for exposing me to problems I couldn't do anything about, besides act phony.

He had his back facing me. He was in one of the two bedrooms in the one story house and I was in the family room. I said, "Dad, how much longer?" He said nothing and didn't even look back. I was sure I'd said it loud enough for him to hear.

That didn't make me any happier.

Well, anyways, I did know how to do construction work like swinging this hammer in my hand. My father had dragged me to work sites like this many times before to put on 'the show'. It was more fun as a kid. I'd actually thought I was making a difference back then. And he'd buy me candy on the way to the site. Sometimes he'd let me drink coffee from his thermos, even though it'd keep me up at night. So, of course, I'd pick up some tips along the way.

For a moment, I started to concentrate on my work and hammer a bit faster. And, so for that moment, the phoniness wasn't so sharp. I'd perfectly hammered the bottom half of my board in place, if I do say so myself, and I didn't half-do the nail at the top of the board either.

My dad would go behind me and finish the second board on top of mine because it was too high for me. Yet just for this one board, I'd decided to hammer an extra nail in the center.

 ** _The scandal! That one nail would blow my father's budget. He'd go bankrupted for sure. We'd be out on the street. And someday some other rich twit would be hammering our one-story, two-bedroom house together._**

When I placed the nail in the middle, it was at eye level. Then I had another thought – a bad one.

I glanced over at my dad who was in the wall-less hallway ahead of me. He had his back completely turned. He was kinda inspecting some wall joints and enthusiastically waving at a young mother pushing a baby carriage across the sidewalk in front of him. And he baby-waved at the infant. He was paying me no mind. Then I looked behind me. No one's looking.

I focused on my index finger that was holding the left side of the nail and with all the swing I could muster without grunting aloud, I slammed the hammerhead perfectly on my finger.

My finger squashed against the board but I didn't yell or cry from any pain I may have felt.

Staring intently at my father's back and quickly spying around again, I swung the hammerhead down on the exact same spot… and again and again and again. There wasn't the slightest redness or hammerhead imprint on my finger.

But I had to start biting my lower lip to hold the urge to grunt. Other than that, I had no cause to make a sound.

People called it virtus-propellaphobia. It's the fear of using or pushing your special ability, or trait. It's not performance anxiety exactly – it's specifically performance anxiety of a super-human trait. The problem wasn't that I had virtus-propellaphobia – the problem was I didn't have it.

Normal people would freak out like they're supposed to if a hammer came down on their finger. That was eons of crafted instinct. If a hard, heavy thing came down on your fragile finger bones, you'd move it. Simple, right? With my trait, I knew my finger would be fine, but that's no supposed to matter. My finger still should had moved. If it didn't, something was wrong with my brain and then we're talking crazy town. The only thing worse than having the trait in the first place, was to be emotionless about it.

I paused and looked around for the last time, even quicker than before. I stared intensely at my index finger. I turned the hammerhead around, so it would bare its sharp, two pronged teeth.

What should happen next was the teeth dig into my skin, through the flesh and crush the bone. I'd feel something then. I'd be normal again. Like before the accident – the one with my mother.

When I would come down with the hammerhead, it should be in slow-motion like the car that was about to hit my mom and me. After the pain, there should be a reaction of "what happen?"

I swung the hammer down on my finger, this time even harder than before, in the fastest succession I could. My eyes squint shut and teeth grinding.

But I'd felt what I'd been feeling since the accident — nothing. It was frustratingly empty and painless when it should be normal.

"Anissa!" my dad cried, standing to the right of me. "What in the blue blazes are you doing to yourself?!"

"Nothin'"

He snatches my left hand but then tenderly inspects it. He couldn't see a bruise, scratch, or anything on my poor, little index finger. He even looks on the other side of my hand and still nothing. In a calmer but still caring voice, he said, "Are you alright?"

"Yep."

"Am I hurting you by touching your hand?"

"Nope."

"But how…? I could have sworn you… I'm sure I heard it." he looks at the hammer in my other hand which is resting at my side. He picks it up without taking it from my hand and thoroughly inspected it and the board. No blood, skin or dent in the wood. I couldn't remember the last time my dad looked so confused. He always looked so strong.

When he was satisfied that there no damage done, he said, "What were you doing, hon? I turned around and you were swinging that hammer like you've lost your mind. We need to talk, baby."

"I hate doing this stuff, Dad," I said, changing the subject. I let the hammer slip through my fingers and walked away from him.

"You used to like helping your old man with his work."

"I was twelve, dad. I'm sixteen now."

"What happened to you, hon? Can't we talk like we used to?" he said while waving at another stranger with his perfect phony smile.

I shook my head and huffed and said, "Can I just go home now? I'll drive myself. AJ can come pick you up."

"When did you learn to drive?" That seemed to wake him out of fake mode. I'm sure later he figured out that even though I knew how to drive, I didn't have my learner's permit. He smiled warmly and said, "Just tell me what's been bothering you and I can fix it, hon, but you've got to tell your old man about it first."

"You can't fix everything, Dad."

"Try me." He looked like he was gloating a little. He actually believed he could fix anything. Geez. "…If you want to talk about your mother, I'm here for you."

"Dad, what are you talking about?" I was completely done. I put on my thin, end of summer coat and walked out of the missing front door. "Can I go now?"

"Fine, fine, we don't have to talk about it until you're ready." I could see in his eyes the shift from caring father back to phony politician. "Just don't hammer like that anymore, baby. You looked like one of those crazed sups on TV. A pretty girl like you'll attract all them freaks to come at us."

"Frea—… God, Dad, that's awful."

"I'm telling you what's right, hon. They might be looking at us right now, you never know. They're used to being creepy. They have to live lives of hiding and being shifty because no wants them around."

"That's not true."

"Not true? Where could you find a super if you wanted to?"

"Ugh! I hate it when you do this."

"Where, since you think I'm lying to you?"

"Here."

"Yes, that's right and why here?"

"Because sups stay in poor neighborhoods."

"That's right. And they're not doing it for your health either. The property damage they cause in nice areas just shouldn't be tolerated. And the important people— What if the city mayor lived right next to a mind reader? Or even worse, what if we had a mind reader living next door to us? Wouldn't that be bad?"

"Then why are we here alone? If it's so dangerous then why can't we go home?"

He smugly wobbled his head and said, "Look over my shoulder, Ms. Splendor…"

"Yuck. Don't call me that, Dad. I hate that made-up name."

"Just, just, just look over your shoulder, girl."

I did and for the first time, I saw Gab Tollsome. He's one of dad's security and he was walking up behind me quietly. His tall frame glided from wooden plank to plank as he came forward. Behind him, his cheap import car outlined his thick biceps as they flexed with each stretch. He said, "Hey, Tessa."

Dad said with a scowl, "Her name is Ms. Splendor to you, Gabe."

"Yeah, sorry, Reverend Splendor."

I said, "Dad, please!" I was so shaken up that I tripped off of the two-stepped high wooden flooring. I would had fell face first onto grass if Gabe didn't catch me. He held me up in his arms with ease and a slight smile.

Why wasn't he grossed out by what he saw? I knew he saw me. I'm a freak. If it was me, I don't know what I'd do.


End file.
